My ALA began on a sad note when, while Richard and I were on the way to the airport, Martha texted to tell me that Robin Smith had died. This is such a loss – I knew no one as good as Robin at connecting children and books. I saw it in her many years […]

More News from ALA Annual 2017:

The worst thing about the days leading up to ALA is the wardrobe issue. You’re saving all the good (well, better) stuff for Conference and you wear rags to work. Those V-neck t-shirts you bought by mistake. The socks that used to be purple but are now decidedly pink. Don’t look at me. But I […]

After the Sutherland Lecture committee meeting on Friday afternoon, committee member and CPL Director of Children’s and YA services Liz McChesney gave us a tour of the soon-to-open new Thomas Hughes Children’s Library. I remember the old-old one in the Cultural Center as wonderfully shadowy, but this new one is bright and big and bold […]

After the Sutherland Lecture committee meeting on Friday afternoon, committee member and CPL Director of Children’s and YA services Liz McChesney gave us a tour of the soon-to-open new Thomas Hughes Children’s Library. I remember the old-old one in the Cultural Center as wonderfully shadowy, but this new one is bright and big and bold […]

I hope you’ll join me for the 2017 Zena Sutherland Lecture, to be held on Friday, May 5 at 7:30PM at the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago. Our lecturer is the wonderful Melissa Sweet; her chosen topic is “To Inform and Delight: The Elements of Story.” Tickets are free but you gotta reserve your […]

You should totally come to this. Marilyn Nelson gave one of the best speeches I ever heard on the occasion of her winning the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award in 2001 for Carver. I hope I see you in Chicago on May 6th.

I am over the moon about President Obama’s nomination of Carla D. Hayden to the position of Librarian of Congress. Carla and I were buddies back in Chicago–we met when she was YA coordinator at CPL and I interviewed her for a paper I was writing for library school, and later I worked for her […]

WHY I have to go to Chicago to see Jack Gantos when he lives only a mile away from my office is a question I’ll happily ignore to hear his Zena Sutherland Lecture at the Chicago Public Library tomorrow night. Join us if you can; otherwise you can read Jack’s speech in the Horn Book this […]

I hope you jumped on those Sutherland Lecture tickets yesterday because they are gone baby gone–I understand that even the waiting list is full. A big fan of John Green’s books, I am nevertheless nervous about being in an auditorium filled with John Green Girls, beautiful, complicated and ka-razy creatures that they are. Or do […]

Tickets are now available for the 2014 Zena Sutherland Lecture by John Green. Friday, May 2, 7:30 PM at the Harold Washington Library Center in sweet home Chicago. Admission is free but tickets are required, and only two to a customer. Get em now if you want to go and I’ll see you there.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one from me before, but when I was a student in Zena’s children’s lit course (along with your friend and mine, Elizabeth), she devoted one class to discussing review journals, aka her Rivals. Booklist got some love because her star student, Betsy Hearne, was then the children’s book […]

Ooh, who remembers this one? In 1982, the library systems of Chicago, Milwaukee, and San Francisco banned Margot Zemach’s Jake and Honeybunch Go to Heaven from their collections (Chicago, from where I followed the whole story avidly, did include it in its two regional research libraries). Unlike the headlines, still popular today, that too-loosely use […]

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has just posted an opening for a library technology coordinator, according to Lisa E. Perez, library manager for CPS’s Department of Literacy. It’s encouraging to see the opening given that Chicago, like many US cities, has recently faced budget cuts.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Monday that he would expand the Chicago Public Library’s (CPL) YOUmedia digital skills program by $500,000 in order to serve 25 percent more teens in 2014. The program teaches web design, digital media production, and programming. The announcement comes just a week after the online expansion of CPL’s homework help program.

Can a public library serve both school children and its other patrons at the same time? That question is being put to the test in Chicago this week as the Back of the Yards Library—a public branch meant to serve as a school library for the 9–12 grade students attending the new Back of the Yards High School next door—opens its doors.

Off tomorrow to my, what, 35th? ALA annual conference, and hope to see some of you there. Our booth is #1416, but I’ll be wandering the exhibit halls, mainly, drumming up business with Al Berman while Martha P. scouts the programming (she’s at the Caldecott pre-conference today, lucky girl). One non-work event I’m looking forward […]